The Turn of the Screw
Henry James (1898)
“The most famous ambiguity in English literature: a governess sees ghosts — or loses her mind — and a child dies in her arms.”
Character Analysis
The most debated narrator in English literature. A twenty-year-old clergyman's daughter, educated but economically dependent, given absolute authority over two children by an employer who told her never to contact him. She is either a heroic woman fighting supernatural evil to protect innocent children, or a sexually repressed, psychologically unstable woman whose delusions destroy them. James makes both readings equally sustainable. Her narration is confident, elaborate, and self-justifying — qualities of either a clear-eyed witness or a sophisticated fabulist.
Educated, literary, self-conscious about her own prose. Uses Latinate vocabulary and complex syntax. Her narration is more elaborate than her social station would predict.